A Young Man Becomes a Chain Saw-Wielding Maniac in ‘Leatherface’ Green Band Trailer

The next entry in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise brings us the story of how Leatherface got his infamous leather face; so they called the movie Leatherface. Very clever, these Hollywood marketing execs.

Looks like we’ll learn how Leatherface went so nuts to begin with, though from what we’ve seen of the Sawyer family in the previous movies, it looks like the poor kid never had much of a shot anyway. In the latest green band trailer there’s some stuff with him getting sent to a mental hospital, which as you might guess doesn’t end well for several orderlies, but mostly it looks like familiar turf for this series.

We spotted a few possible callbacks to the original film, starting with someone, presumably young Leatherface, wearing a cow’s head with a hole between the eyes. We learned from Franklin in the 1974 classic how a “big air gun” to the skull used to be the way the cattle were killed at the slaughterhouse. (Prior to that they used a sledgehammer, perhaps a less-humane way to do it but at least it didn’t put people out of jobs.)

There’s also a sequence reminiscent of the horrifying family dinner, in which Marilyn Burns’ Sally is tied up in a chair while the Sawyers emotionally torture her. In Leatherface, some poor guy is the one tied up, and Leatherface’s birthday present is to slice him up with a chain saw. (We’re just guessing that’s what happens, but the implication is fairly clear.)

This will be the eighth Texas Chain Saw story, and it can be a bit hard to keep track of everything. This one takes place earlier than all the others, before the previous prequel, 2006’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. We don’t know how much further back they can go, but if Leatherface is successful, we’ll get another installment for sure.

We first heard about this movie three years ago. While it’s probably not a great sign that it’s taken so long to release it, the directors — French filmmaking duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside) — do have an intriguing track record, so let’s hope for the best. You can also check out the previously released red band trailer too, if you’re more into the bloody bits. The official synopsis:

In Texas, years before the events of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, in the early days of the infamous Sawyer family, the youngest child is sentenced to a mental hospital after a suspicious incident leaves the sheriffs’ daughter dead. Years later, he kidnaps a young nurse and escapes with three other inmates. Pursued by authorities including the deranged sheriff out to avenge his daughter’s death, the teen goes on a violent road trip from hell, molding him into the monster known now as Leatherface.

Leatherface stars Stephen Dorff and Lili Taylor. It will be available on DirecTV on September 21, with a limited theatrical run and VOD release October 20.